Chief Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing for the 10/3 majority on June 30, 2028 "Well, ack-tually, the framers did not place term limits and congress has unduly restricted his constitutionally protected right to participate in our democracy. The candidate should be on the November ballot (or otherwise selectable by electoral college electors) in all 50 states"

I think you're overestimating the impact that will have on whatever he would decide to do, given the events of today.

The only official act that could, in theory, bypass this is a declaration of Martial Law that moves out the next inauguration. This has not been tested and likely wouldn’t work.

Just because a crazy mob attacked congress at the behest of Trump does not mean official institutions would do so even if so ordered.

Him and his supporters have said openly that they want to refill the institutions, including the military [0], with politically aligned appointees.

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-vows-fire-generals-push-...

Yes, he has said all kinds of nonsense that had no means to ever materialize. For example I don’t see Mexico paying for a border wall.

By reclassifying all these individuals as Schedule F, he actually has the means to do this and it is a key part of Project 2025. During his first term, he enacted Schedule F and it was repealed by the Biden admin. Trump intends on reintroducing it in a second term. So he has the means to make this one re-materialize and this time he'll actually have the staff to replace people with.

“Attempted murder. Now honestly what is that? Can you win a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?”

It's fundamentally dishonest - and also somewhat delusional - to discount threats even if they didn't come to pass one time. People doubted Trump would try to hold onto office, until he did.

I don’t doubt Trump will try to do the nonsense he says. I do doubt he has the means to persuade educated persons to do such things.

Again, this is less of a concern for him now that he will have sycophants in his orbit now that he's run out of people that will say no to him.

As an aside, I also have doubts that a chimpanzee would be able to successfully disable the safety an AK47. But it would be idiotic to leave that to chance and give one a loaded AK47 anyway.

This seems remarkably naive. Who imposes such constitutional limits?

They are imposed by the constitution and enforced by all bodies that descend from the constitution.

And if those bodies choose not to enforce it?

What ifs… The death spiral of non sequiturs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Formal_fallacy&...

I don't think it's an unreasonable question to ask in this case as there is a very real chance it happens.

You've entirely missed my point.

Bodies that 'descend from the constitution' are certainly constitutionally intended to uphold checks and balances. However this has manifestly failed to happen.

You have a congress deadlocked for decades, 'unitary executive' legal philosophy centralising power in the presidency in order to temporarily pass this legislative deadlock, a senate readily obeisant to the majority party, and a supreme court stacked by the ultra right rolling back civil rights and checks and balances apace. Leading to decision like Citizens United and now presidential immunity.

You have the most recently defeated president still, four years on refusing to accept the results of the last election. A president with a significant base of religious, anti-state and rural poor devastated by decades of drug war and manufacturing decline. A president who openly called for insurrection. He called too on his vice president to overthrow the decision of the electoral college and defended calls to hang him when he did not - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/12/trump-capito....

The thing tank behind the dominant wing of one of the two political parties in the duopoly has consistently pushed the line that the country is not in fact a democracy at all - https://www.heritage.org/american-founders/report/america-re...

All this against a background of a small class the most wealthy plutocrats vying for power, apparently beyond the reach of legal censure. Plutocrats who between them own all the social networks, newspapers and television stations.

Lets not forget the immense power of the total surveillance state revealed by Assange and Snowdon.

Finally you have the vast disregarded body of the American underclass, sleeping in their millions on the streets. Invisible in Americas view of itself, but inescapable in the tent cities and skid rows that seem now to populate every large American city. The nearly two million imprisoned. An underclass that can be victimised and stigmatised, mobilised and made a boogyman for middle classes all to aware of their own vulnerability in the absence of a welfare state.

As a non-American it seems incredibly clear that the path has been laid for a seizure of power within one to two election cycles. Further, I no longer see a way this can be avoided. Trump if victorious - as he seems likely to be against a clearly senescent party machine president - will likely use every power afforded him by the supreme court to remain in power. I'd expect this to follow the pattern it has followed in every other democracy which has swung to authoritarianism. The rooting out of non existent 'conspiracies' of journalists and political opponents, stigmatisation of immigrants and other minority groups, mass deportations, voter deregistration and the use of external threats to justify controls on movement in and out of the country. The rapid stacking and delegitimisation of the lower courts. The use of an enormous network of mega churches to lend the leader the imprimatur of God. Ultimately paramilitary violence and provoked insurrections leading to a state of emergency and some kind of declaration of a temporary presidency of national unity or similar.

Doubtless this sounds histrionic - but I see no institution strong enough or even truly motivated to prevent it. The only hope I see is that such regimes are almost inevitably unstable and tend to topple within a couple of generations. Eaten from the inside out by ambition and betrayal.

Read up on Project 2025 if you haven't already. The plan is to stack the executive with party loyalists. And he would have immunity. Rules and laws only exist in as much as people believe in them and enforce them. That could all just stop.

Stop the insanity. He only has immunity for official acts as determined by lower courts. The Supreme Court decision is largely a punt back to lower courts but affirms that a president cannot be indicted for acts after leaving office if those acts were committed while in office and an official act as determined by a federal judge.

For one, he's possibly going to skate on trying to overturn the election due to this ruling. He's possibly going to skate on stealing classified documents just on Thomas' concordance. Trump has already shown he has no respect for the law. Trump voters don't seem to care at all either. He can and will do the absolute worst possible things he can get away with. This ruling may not be enough to destroy the Republic but it's giving ammunition to someone who is more than willing to do it. This is the closest we've come to destruction since 1860. I don't think freaking out about this is alarmist.

Trump and his ilk absolutely do not care about the constitution. There's a good chance democracy will be over in the US if he gets re-elected.

Agreed, but every one else does.